feels himself inclined to close, as that which is most congenial to the natural impressions of his mind. Perhaps there is no man, however little he may appear to respect Religion in his conduct, who has not yet some idea of it in his own mind, on which he relies, as giving him a hope, faint indeed and undefined, of ultimate reconciliation with his Maker. A naked barefaced denial of all obligation to regard God in any way or degree, is a pitch of depravity to which the soul of man rarely attains, and from which it is naturally abhorrent. But though some sense of Religion be thus readily entertained by the mind, it is no less obvious, that it entertains as readily a host of tumultuous passions and unruly appetites, which demand gratification without control, and whose gratification is utterly inconsistent with a real regard to religious truth. What then is to be done? How shall the mind, thus pressed on both sides by duty and passion, preserve itself in tranquillity, without positively renouncing the one or the other? It might be supposed, that with the express declarations of Scrip

ture against vice, and the strong feeling of the mind itself in favour of Religion on the one hand, and the violent cravings of passion on the other, the soul must at once resolve, either to give up the indulgence of its appetites, or boldly deny the faith that restrains them. The fact is quite the reverse. Men in general will do neither; and they have done neither from the time when their first parent introduced sin into the world by transgressing the commandment of his God. They will neither part with their Religion, nor restrain their appetites ; but they will exert their best skill and ability to make them agree, and, by every art of sophistical ingenuity, pervert the principles of faith, and defile the very sources of morality. Hence the various forms of superstition and fanaticism; hence the opposing sects of heathen philosophers; hence the subtle refinements of those "blind

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guides, who could strain at a gnat, and "swallow a camel":" hence the sceptical doubts of Christians, who would gladly excuse to themselves the sin they have a mind

P Matth. xxiii. 24.

to commit, whilst they know that the plainest declarations of the Law, and the clearest doctrines of the Gospel, forbid it. Men will have a religion; it is natural to them as creatures, and relieves that feeling of dependence of which they cannot be insensible, and it is their only solace in distress : but they will not restrain their passions; these must be gratified, while they have any means of gratifying them, and nothing can be admitted which would insist upon that restraint as a necessary part of Religion. It cannot therefore be surprising, if, under such circumstances, we see the world overspread with perversions of the truth. They owe their origin to those efforts of the human mind, by which it endeavours to discover some method of hiding from itself the visible contrariety between religion and vice. It wishes for both; and it exerts all the energy and all the talent it possesses, to make them compatible. Not that this is a deliberate act, of which the mind is sensible at the time: far otherwise: it labours as much at first to deceive itself, and is as unhappily successful in that deceit, as it

can ever afterwards be in deceiving others. The whole is the pitiable fruit of its corruption; of that unhappy perversion, which gave to the baser appetites of our nature the mastery over the nobler faculties of our souls. But however pitiable it may be, and however necessary it is thus to trace error to its source in a self-deceived mind, it is altogether without excuse in those to whom a Divine Revelation has been communicated. Corruption cannot in any case be admitted as a plea for vice; much less, when it sets itself in opposition to the declared Will of God, and perverts the very means which have been appointed for the cure of itself. But this is the situation of all, who have been called by the mercy of God to the knowledge of the Gospel. In that Gospel the Will of God has been revealed in such clear terms, "that he may 66 run who reads ;" and no one who reads can doubt what it is that God would have him "do and believe to his soul's health"." If indeed we wish to form a right judgment of ourselves or our duty, it is to the word ⚫ Baptismal Service.

q Habbak. ii. 2.

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of God we must have récourse. It alone teaches us our true condition, and discloses with infallible certainty the source of all our errors and all our vices. And the end for which it does so is not to upbraid us with our infirmities, or to supply us with an apology for our sins, but by discovering the nature and the cause of our disease, to apply to it that remedy which will most effectually eradicate it from our souls, and by restoring us to our original innocence, reinstate us in our original happiness. That this is really its design, will appear, I trust, in the course of the following Lectures; a design, which, if it can be illustrated in any degree as it deserves, will so prove the Moral Tendency of Divine Revelation, and so enforce the necessity of obeying the precepts as well as believing the doctrines of the Gospel, as to leave no room to hope, that a sound faith can ever be consistent with vicious practice.

A right understanding of this matter is of vast consequence to all. I presume not to think that I can add any thing to the conviction of those who have already ex